A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking: Deciding What to Do - download pdf or read online

A realistic creation to severe considering throughout a number of disciplines
Knowing how you can imagine seriously approximately what to think and what to do is key for achievement in either educational environments. a pragmatic advisor to serious pondering introduces readers to the strategies, tools, and criteria for considering significantly approximately purposes and arguments in almost any zone of perform. whereas such a lot literature on serious considering specializes in its formal functions inside philosophy, this booklet bargains a huge belief of serious considering and explores its useful relevance to undertaking examine throughout a wide selection of disciplines, together with enterprise, schooling, and the organic sciences.
While the e-book pursues an interdisciplinary method of serious pondering, supplying examples and illustrations from assorted matters and fields of study, it additionally offers innovations to assist readers determine the tools and criteria which are attribute of severe pondering of their selected branches of studying, of their office, and of their personal lives. the idea that of an issue is prolonged past its philosophical roots to incorporate experimentation, checking out, dimension, coverage improvement and evaluate, and aesthetic appreciation as actions that require serious pondering. The logical, middle recommendations of serious pondering are provided in a rigorous but casual approach, with inventive and sensible concepts for outlining, interpreting, and comparing purposes and arguments at any place they're chanced on. every one bankruptcy ends with a "Mistakes to Avoid" part in addition to a number of workouts designed to assist readers combine and expand the chapter's lessons.
A useful advisor to severe pondering is a wonderful booklet for classes on severe considering and common sense on the upper-undergraduate and graduate degrees. it's also a suitable reference for someone with a common curiosity in severe pondering talents.

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Additional info for A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking: Deciding What to Do and Believe

Example text

So, relativism is true of moral facts. CRITICAL THINKING A N D K N O W L E D G E 11 Let us call this argument for moral relativism, the Argument from Disagreement. It would be easy to transform it into an argument for any kind of relativism. " But let's focus on this argument, since the main lessons will apply across the board. The A r g u m e n t from Disagreement has an important logical p r o p erty. It is valid. , claim (iii)) would have to be true too. In other words, it is not possible for those premises to be true and yet for the conclusion to be false.

W h e n we decide what to believe or what to do we have to m a k e sure that we consider all of the evidence we have or can get and we have to m a k e sure that the evidence we decide to go with is not overridden by other evidence. A handy rule of t h u m b is: Think twice, decide once. Bits of evidence can conflict in another way. The evidence we have might be undermined by other evidence that we have. 1 24 T H E N A T U R E A N D V A L U E OF CRITICAL THINKING general. For example, the witness for the prosecution might have testified that he saw the defendant pull the trigger.

The same is true if I am asked to defend my assessment of the evidence or my use of different methods for collecting evidence. If I come to identify too closely with these particular methods for assessing and collecting evidence, if I come to think of my value as a researcher as tied into their value, then I will react to criticisms of t h e m as if they were criticisms of me and my judgment. This feeling of being under attack might m a k e me feel defensive, and this can prevent me from thinking critically about the issue at hand.